Anonymous Donor Posts $500K Bond for Teen Jailed Over Sarcastic Comment on Facebook
Thanks to an anonymous donor who posted his once prohibitive $500,000 bond, Justin Carter, the Texas teenager arrested in February for making a sarcastic comment on Facebook, was released from jail on Thursday and is now speaking out.
"I'm just really elated now that I'm out to enjoy everything," the teenager, who was 18 in February when he was arrested, told CNN's Kate Bolduan on "New Day."
Now 19, young Carter is facing a felony terrorism charge for comments he made after he allegedly got into an argument over the online game "League of Legends."
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"Someone had said something to the effect of 'Oh you're insane, you're crazy, you're messed up in the head,' to which he replied 'Oh yeah, I'm real messed up in the head, I'm going to go shoot up a school full of kids and eat their still, beating hearts,' and the next two lines were lol and jk," explained his father Jack Carter in an earlier report.
When Bolduan asked the 19-year-old how he felt about the reaction to his comments he responded, "I just think that it got taken out of context and it's been blown out of proportion."
In a report last week, Jack Carter wept as he talked about the abuse his son was suffering because the family was unable to make the $500,000 bond imposed by the court for his son to make bail.
"Without getting into the really nasty details, he's had concussions, black eyes, moved four times from base for his own protection," said Jack Carter in an NPR interview last Wednesday. "He's been put in solitary confinement, nude, for days on end because he's depressed. All of this is extremely traumatic to this kid. This is a horrible experience."
In the CNN interview on Friday, young Carter was joined by his father, mother Jennifer Carter and attorneys Chad Van Brunt and Donald Flanary, both of whom are representing the family for free.
When asked if he would have reacted on Facebook differently in hindsight, he replied in the affirmative.
"I certainly would have thought a lot more about what I said and how permanent my writing is…. I just want to make it clear that people should be very, very careful of what they say and it's being recorded all the time if you say it on any website, anywhere. And you can get in trouble for something that's not something you should get in trouble for. And I just want people to be warned," he said.
